


(i'm not here for better but) for worse

by skeletalescape



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame Fix, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), steve rogers is a Big Bi Baby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 07:46:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18633859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeletalescape/pseuds/skeletalescape
Summary: so tell me this and tell it to me straight: if you could go back in time, if you could go back to her, if you could be happy— goddammit, steve, wouldn’t you? wouldn’t you?





	1. little beast.

**Author's Note:**

> (a) takes place right after the 5 year jump. 
> 
> (b) also, don't read this if you haven't seen endgame. obviously.

_ here’s the thing, stevie.  _

_ here’s the goddamn thing.  _ _ i’m selfish. alright? i am. if these are the last days i’ll get to hold you in my arms then they might as well be the last days on earth.  _

_ here’s something i won’t ever tell you, something i probably won’t ever tell anyone; i never stopped thinking about you. understand? hyrda could put my brain in a vat of water and drop a toaster in there and my first thought after putting my head on straight was  where’s stevie ? sometimes it wasn’t so strong, sometimes i just thought of blond hair or your dumb beaked nose. sometimes i just smelled the rotting wood of our apartment.  _

_ but i never forgot. god help me, i don’t know if i even can.  _

_ you remember that time, in ‘37 when you dragged me to the theater to see goddamn snow white? i hadn’t even washed the grease off my face and there you was, goin’ on and on about artistic integrity and cartoons of the future. i know you only added that future bit in there to get me to go with you but what you didn’t know is i woulda gone no matter what. i’da given everything i had to make you smile like that. i still would. _

_ so if tomorrow you decide you want to go back and live the life you’ve always wanted, i won’t be angry— i’ll be fuckin' thrilled, alright? won’t nobody be happier for you than me. you deserve the world, rogers, and she and i might be the only people on god’s green earth who understand that.  _

_ so tell me this and tell it to me straight: if you could go back in time, if you could go back to her, if you could be happy— goddammit, steve wouldn’t you?  wouldn’t you? _

_ yours, always. _

_ bucky.  _


	2. saying their names.

the monotony of putting the chairs away gives steve something to do that isn’t ruminate on the air of pain and suffering that permeates the room. the fluorescents, which are not flattering and make everything a little uglier than usual, aren’t helping. steve’s asked, many times, if they could swap the bulbs out for the warmer filament bulbs that most therapy offices use but his requests fall on deaf ears.

sam’s room at the va in d.c. had had the fluorescent bulbs as well, but sam always kept the windows open, letting the natural sunlight flood out the bitter white. it made steve feel at home, even if he did spend the few meetings he attended lurking in the back with a hat tucked down low.

opening the windows now, though, would just remind everyone that the once bustling main street has been reduced to a few workers walking fast towards their destination.

it’s hard moving to the future while standing in the past.

still, steve tries. he models all his meetings after sam wilson’s method. he shakes everyone’s hand. he encourages them to do things that make them happy even if they make them a little sad, too.

“what makes you happy?” he had asked, after a particularly emotional session, letting sam’s voice escape from his throat. he didn’t expect an answer, just as an answer wasn’t expected of him all those years ago, but it got the gears turning.

he had seen sam wilson every day for two weeks after that. as awful as it was, steve had mostly been reassured that he hadn’t forgotten what sam looked like.

he moves slowly, methodically, cleaning out the coffee machine and sweeping up the floor. the rainbow lanyard swings around his neck obnoxiously so he tugs it off and sits it on the counter. _steve! :)_  looks back at him, written in ridiculously bubbly letters with blue, purple, and pink ink courtesy of natasha. it looks obscene in this lighting but steve still smiles gently.

they had argued about it, a little, when they had first made the name tags. natasha had been wholly uninterested in his offer of making them for the group together until steve had whipped out the thirty pack of rainbow lanyards he ordered from amazon and a pack of offensive colored pencils. then she went full speed ahead, writing names in elaborate loops and stenciling in intricate little patterns.

she held up steves, grinning, “like it?”

“that’s the gayest thing i’ve ever seen.”

“you don’t look in the mirror, anymore?”

steve huffed, “i’m not gay.”

natasha, being natasha, hadn’t missed a beat and shot back, “i forgot bisexuals are so dramatic” to which steve openly rolled his eyes to the ceiling and asked god for patience.

“come on, steve,” natasha had laughed, and the sound was so foreign that steve was willing to make a million jokes at the expense of his sexuality if he could keep hearing it, “you’re their leader. captain bi.”

“captain bi,” he agreed, sagely. natasha threw her head back and cackled, insisting she was going to put that on his tag, instead.

a buzzing noise brings him out of the memory and steve’s smile drops into a frown. his personal phone is in his pocket, meaning the buzzing must be from the phone tucked into his bag. he leans the broom he was using against the wall and crosses the room quickly, digging the device out and hitting the green answer button before checking the caller id. only five people on earth have this number and steve would drop anything for them.

“hey, how much sugar do you put in your cheesecake? mine’s always a little tart,” he asks, by way of greeting. steve was never really cut out for spy stuff, but natasha had hammered the imperfections of cell phone towers too many times for him not to follow her weird password protocols.

“cup and a half,” comes the answer. it’s rhodes, “but you have to mix it an extra minute to make it sweet. i’ve got a holo-call with our favorite redhead in fifteen minutes.”

“oh,” steve says, because he doesn’t know what to say to that. steve opted out of being apart of the holo-calls a few years back, when it became apparent that no one was finding anything but suffering. after that, he started running his little queer support group and worked towards helping ease that suffering in the only way he knew how.

rhodey knows this, and puts steve out of his questioning quickly, “i just finished cleaning up after arrows-to-a-gunfight. the kitchen was real bad, man. strawberry sauce everywhere.”

“jesus.”

“ _yea_. you think i should tell her?”

“she has the right to know,” steve says immediately, though he sees rhodes’s point. “i’ll check in on her after i’m finished here.

they end the call after that, both acutely aware that nothing important should be said over the phone and the window for conversation is just under a minute.

steve sighs, dropping the phone back into his bag.

in a lot of ways, he feels for barton. steves never had a family to lose like that, but he’s familiar with loss and with the temptation of giving in.

in more ways, he worries about natasha. it’s a losing situation and there are no solutions. all he can do is try and pick up the pieces.

 

* * *

 

 _is this old footage?_  

_it’s the front door._

 

* * *

 

tony does not deserve what steve is about to ask of him.

tony is a good man. one of the best, in fact, that steve has ever known, and he deserves to retire with his wife and kid.

natasha says this on the drive over, and before scott can interject with a vehement but small-minded response, steve nods. “he does,” he sighs, propping his arm up on the car door, “but doesn’t everyone else? don’t we owe it to them?”

scott nods aggressively in the back seat but natasha looks unconvinced.

“doesn’t clint deserve a happy ending, too?”

she shoots him a dirty look over the center console, “I taught you to manipulate, rogers, don’t fuck with me.”

he huffs out a laugh and scott pops his head up between their seats. natasha casually shifts so she’s closer to the window. “he can say no if he really wants no parts.”

steve sighs. that’s exactly why tony doesn’t deserve this. “no. he really can’t.”

in general, it goes about as well as steve expects it to.

which is to say it goes disastrously and they’re no closer to bringing this absolutely ridiculous idea to life than when scott showed up at the compound. on top of that, steve is feeling immensely guilty for having asked in the first place. morgan is adorable and she deserves to have a father just as much as tony deserves to be a father.

scott resolutely does not complain the whole ride to the airport, though steve can tell he wants to.

 

* * *

 

natasha leads them through the deli but she really doesn’t need to. bruce takes up half the aisle and doesn't blend in _at all_.

he’s wearing clothes now, though. so that’s great.

it takes surprisingly little convincing to get him on board. steve is afraid to start hoping for anything but the situation makes it difficult. they have a chance. it’s a crazy shot in the dark, sure, but it’s something.

more than that, though, they have a task. a mission to complete. it lights a fire under natasha who, in turn, lights a fire under steve. bruce is so caffeinated his whole body shakes and scott just seems happy to be included.

“when can we do our first test run?” steve asks bruce, who’s surrounded by papers and holograms and coffee cups that seem absurdly small in front of him.

bruce sighs, rubs a big hand over his face, “tomorrow, for sure.”

steves nods and heads off to tell the others. scott is sitting on the couch, glued to the tv. the sounds of the cartoon are achingly familiar and for a second, just a _second_ , steve can see a different head of dark hair there, arm flung out to the side and taking up too much space. _come watch, stevie, it’s funny._

“cap!” scott exclaims, jerking upright and scrambling to his feet. steve has told him on multiple occasions he doesn’t need to get up when steve enters the room but scott, every time, without fail, responds with _but you’re captain america_. “what’s going on, is everything okay?”

steve nods, the ghost of a placating smile on his face. “it’s great. bruce wants to run our first test run tomorrow.”

“that’s awesome,” scott says, and sounds like he means it.

“get some rest, scott. big day tomorrow.”

natasha is reading her emails when steve finds her. it’s something she does obsessively when she’s anxious, so she’s been refreshing the list practically nonstop for the four days that bruce has been in the compound. “any news from the void?” steve asks, even though he knows there isn’t. if anything had changed natasha would have told him right away.

she puts down her tablet, “tell me bruce has good news.”

“test run tomorrow.”

relief breaks across her face just long enough for steve to see it, “good. good, that’s,” she breathes a heavy sigh, “that’s good.”

they’re silent for a minute. steve takes solace in the company and he thinks natasha might, too. in the distance, there’s the sound of scott fumbling around in the kitchen, making more noise than any human being should have the right to. it’s nice.

steve’s been alone so long that he forgot how comforting it is to hear other people.

natasha starts aimlessly clicking on her tablet, paying it too much attention. she’s putting on an air of nonchalance that steve has come to understand means an uncomfortable question is coming. he braces himself.

she doesn’t disappoint, “we’ll get him back, steve.”

steve’s body reacts before he can even begin to get a handle on what natasha’s saying. there’s no impending threat, at least not one that’s tangible, but that doesn’t stop his stupid response system. his heart kicks into overdrive and his muscles tense up so hard they ache. his breath comes faster and faster until it feels like he isn’t really breathing at all.

“steve,” nat’s in front of him, all the sudden, which is almost funny because if this is his body at its most alert he’s screwed because he did not see her get up.

he gasps, “sorry, _sorry_ — i,” but he can’t get enough air in to put the words out. it feels like an asthma attack. it feels like he’s dying.

“steve i need you to breathe,” she tells him, words sharp, mission ready, “follow me, steve.” she takes big, exaggerated breaths to help him see.

it’s hard to focus on them at first but once he does, it's all he can do just to follow her lead.

he isn’t sure how long it takes to regulate his breathing and even less sure how long they sit like this, with natasha kneeling in front of him and him leaning so far forward he’s practically in her neck. neither of them are particularly tactile people, but her touch is the only thing keeping him grounded to the present.

“does this happen every time?” natasha asks. steve appreciates that she doesn’t apologize for bringing it up. he’s a trauma counselor, for god’s sakes, it’s no ones fault but his own that he hasn’t dealt with the one thing that really brings him to pieces.

“yea.”

she pauses for a second, considering this. “i’ve never seen it before.”

steve shrugs, sits back in the chair and resolutely doesn’t look at her, “i don’t like to think about it.”

it probably has something to do with the cartoon scott was watching and the undercurrent of stress running rampant in the halls. steve doesn’t know. it’s hard to think about.

there’s a moment where natasha wants to push. he can see it play out on her face, weighing the pros and cons of him avoiding the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. the pros must outweigh the cons though, because she just nods, and pats his knee.

“me, too.”

the trial run goes worse than steve was expecting. he was expecting an average failure so the whole baby scott thing is a real slap in the face.

he’s used to failure.

he is not used to failure that feels like this.

natasha and bruce are bickering while scott awkwardly tries to change his clothes without drawing more attention to the urine stain. steve takes the opportunity to slip away, desperate for fresh air and quiet. it’s been almost a hundred years since he’s even smelled a lucky strike but he would kill for one now, even if the cigarettes of today taste like ash and chemicals..

the problem is this: steve has spent the past five years trying to help everyone he encounters move on. he talks about the importance of letting go every day. he encourages trying new things and meeting new people.

but those things never really applied to him because he wasn’t looking to move on. he was, and still is, focused on fixing the wrong.

yes, everyone should try to live fully functioning lives, but it didn’t really matter because steve wasn’t going to let this go. steve was going to fix this. steve was going to bring everyone back. he was going to bring _him_ back.

failing now— failing _again_ , feels less like personal shame and more like being dropped off a very high mountain and into a very deep trench. it’s a never ending pit. steve is starting to think he wants to let it swallow him whole.

in the distance, a car whips into the compounds driveway. there’s only a handful of people who know the entrance code and even less who are on the same continent, much less in the country.

the speed of the vehicle alone is enough to rule out all but one.

steve almost smiles, but the failure is still too fresh, and he isn’t really sure he should be agreeing to any terms tony puts out on the basis that he wants to send him right back home. _thank you for this useful technology, tony, we’ll find you when it’s over!_ but it doesn’t work like that.

no one’s ever really out, are they?

tony hands him the shield and, not for the first time, steve is gutted by the weight of forgiveness.

 

* * *

 

_you’ve got the rest of the team?_

_we’re working on it._

 

* * *

 

 

steve carved a special place for natasha in his heart that day in new york, when he looked at her, doubt heavy in his eyes and asked, “are you sure?” and she, tracking a giant alien space whale with her eyes, had shrugged, “it’ll be fun.”

he leans against the wall, crossing his arms across his chest. there’s a chance she’ll tease him for showing off his biceps, but the weight of the upcoming mission is too heavy for them both. she doesn’t even look up.

“you don’t have to go alone,” he tells her while she zips up her tac suit.

she smiles at him without meeting his eyes, sad and tired and hopeful. “everyone wanted me dead when clint found me,” she murmurs, cataloging her ammunitions and knives as she tucks them away in her belt, “they said i was too far gone. that i would never be better than i was— morally, at least, because everyone knew i was the best in the field”

natasha hasn’t told him this story before. hinted at it, talked around it, but even now steve doesn’t understand the relationship she has with barton.

“clint subdued me, brought me in, helped me defect. he introduced me to american culture. he introduced me to his _family_ ,” she pauses to start a braid in her hair, fingers flying, “he was the first person, and for a while the only person, to believe i was better than my past, better than the red in my ledger.

even when i had nothing,” she says with a little smile.

steve nods, “you had clint.”

“i owe this to him.” she moves to pass him in the doorway. she stops, patting him on his crossed arms, “don’t worry, we’ll be back before you can miss me.”

 

* * *

 

 

everyone deals with crisis’s differently. steve is intimately aware of this— more so than anyone on the team, probably.

still, even he feels out of depth when faced with the size of clint and thor’s monsters. they’ve both seen losses that completely disabled the men they were before and are currently walking around the compound wearing the skin of a very-scary-vengeful-sword-machine man and don’t-look-at-me-or-i’ll-cry man, respectively.

clint, at least, remains goal-oriented and giving him a specific task to focus on keeps him from scaring everyone too much. steve’s walked in on him glowering from within a shadow more than once and in the spirit of completing the challenge ahead, had simply waved and offered up whatever piece of good news he has rattling around the back of his brain, even if he’s already told clint before, just to get him to stop scaring scott every second.

there’s more he wants to do for clint but it’s hard to find a point. he’s still functioning, can still keep up with their conversations even if he is a little more willing to take risks these days. it becomes a question of cost efficient versus cost effective.

clint will do whatever it takes to see this mission through. at this point, that’s all anyone has the right to ask of him.

thor, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. how does he ask someone to give their all when they’ve got nothing left? steve doesn’t know. he’s been working on that question for years.

“meeting in ten, cap,” tony chirps, sliding past him and heading straight for the coffee machine that’s been brewing nothing but robusta beans for the past two weeks.

steve steps back with his own mug in hand, raising his eyebrows, “subject?”

“everyone’s favorite rocks and minerals,” tony responds, rubbing a hand over his face. it’s early in the day, probably around nine in the morning, but no one’s following the sun’s schedule for when they should be sleeping and waking. honestly, steve doesn’t know if tony has ever had a regular sleep schedule, “rally the troops, will ya? i’m starving.”

steve does as asked of him, using his best captain america voice so that everyone knows he’s serious. it’s enforced by the steaming mug of black coffee he’s holding.

they file into the makeshift conference room one-by-one. some of them look thoroughly exhausted— rhodes, scott, bruce, while some look exhilarated— tony, because he’s got good news, natasha, because she has a new purpose, scott, because no one’s told him he can’t be here. steve isn’t sure how he himself looks, but he hopes it’s a shade above his normal resting face of vague disappointment.

“what do we got?” steve asks.

tony, natasha, and bruce launch into their debrief, bouncing off each other in the way that only those intimately familiar with one another can.

it’s all steve can do to keep up. a quick glance around the room shows that everyone else is doing the same, with the exception of thor. thor’s wearing sunglasses again and steve has absolutely no idea what he’s keeping up with at the moment.

it was easy to ignore how bad thor’s gotten when he’d been quietly slinking around with rocket. now though, faced with the reality of him stumbling through the stories of his past and clutching a beer to his chest like a weapon, steve feels immensely guilty. he’d been so caught up in clint and natasha and tony that he completely failed to realize how much thor has suffered.

the meeting passes in a blur after that. steve gives his knowledge on the space stone on autopilot, answering questions without hearing them. natasha’s giving him a weird look and tony looks mildly irritated but it’s the best he can do.

“alright,” he says, after forty-five minutes of information sharing devolves into them sniping at each other, “let’s break. eat lunch, take a nap,” he directs at tony, “then we’ll break off into groups and figure out the best time to go after each stone.” his tone leaves no room for argument and slowly but surely they break off to regroup.

tony, predictably, doesn’t move towards leaving and natasha has already started scribbling on one of the three tablets she has in front of her. steve sighs, “i mean it. you’re no good to anyone dead on your feet.”

“i’m sorry, did you _not_ want me to fix this problem?” tony snarks, raising his eyebrows and looking at steve like he’s an idiot, “is this a fun sleepover because i forgot to bring my sleeping bag.”

steve, all patience, asks, “when was the last time you slept?”

tony, no patience, responds, “i’ll sleep when this is over.”

yea, that’s what steve was expecting him to say, “friday, invoke protocol _cap’s a pushy baby_ ,” he says, over tony’s increasingly loud protests, “security code bravo alpha bravo yankee, steven rogers override tree one zero one niner one seven.”

it’s a protocol he can only use once a month, maximum, and was put in place with bruce’s help many years ago. it locks tony out of the system for a full three hours and only steve can let him back in. he hasn’t had to use it in years.

tony complains the whole way out of the room but steve’s so busy escaping from the intense gaze natasha is trying to initiate that he doesn’t care. “don’t make me lock you out, too,” he tells her over his shoulder and doesn’t stick around to follow through.

his three hour break is spent sprinting nervous energy out around the compounds impressive track and then eating enough to feed four people. his metabolism has showed no signs of slowing down in the past years and, at this point, he doesn’t know if it ever will. sam used to tease him for it relentlessly and steve would always shoot back _add it to your list to ask erskine_.

he wonders if the vanished went to the same place as the dead. are they the dead now, too?

it doesn’t do him any good to think about it so he stops the thought in its tracks.

“rogers override tree one zero one niner one seven,” natasha recites, joining him in looking out across the property. she’s eating applesauce that comes in a pouch.

steve could grill her about the waste of resources, knowing that she’ll respond with how much american consumerism still marvels her tiny russian brain, but his hands are already shaking.

“i made the code before.”

she nods, “i figured. you okay?”

“are _you_?”

“tired. we all are. terrified. anxious,” she sighs, “ready to get this over with so we’ll know if it’s going to work or not.”

“it’s gonna work, nat.”

“why?” steve opens his mouth to respond, but she beats him to it, “because you don’t know what you’ll do if it doesn’t?”

he meets her eyes and finds the fear she was talking about. he doesn’t look away. “no. because i believe in us. i believe in what’s good.”  

natasha nods, “i’m holding you to that, rogers.”

“feel free.”

for lack of a better word, the three days that follow are _fun_. everyone is half out of their mind trying to remember every minute detail of the stones past. scott and clint have banded together to tack a timeline for the stones on the wall that’s made up of different colored yarn, glittery pins, and little symbols that make up everyone who’s ever touched them. steve is represented by a little shield. natasha has a fake spider from party city.

steve has given up on getting any of them to sleep and resigns to keeping the coffee running and helping rhodes make enough food for a green giant, a supersoldier, a large possum, a norse god, and a ridiculously picky group of humans.

he’s always going on about the importance of purpose in his meetings. it’s only a little disappointing that this is the only thing that gives him meaning.

“shut the front door,” bruce exclaims, sitting up from the floor as steve floats in the room to ask for a status update.

tony jerks up from where he’s laying on the table next to natasha, “there were three stones in new york when we fought loki’s aliens!” he looks positively gleeful, “three, cap, _three!_ ”

steve immediately knows that he and tony will be in the group that go back to new york.

once they figure out the best times and places to drop in to get the stones, steve takes point on mapping out how to take them out of each timeline. he assigns the teams according to who has the most experience with each stone but more importantly, who will work best together, who will keep each other in check. it isn’t hard work, but it is precise and requires attention to even the most inane details. they go over the plans so many times even scott has taken to mumbling his part under his breath.

suited up, standing on their brand new portal through time and space, steve looks at each of their faces. they’ve come so far, he thinks, and lost so much.

this will work.

it has to.

* * *

 

_see you in a minute._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) i've only seen endgame once and i was so anxious i could've completely scrambled the plot points. i'll be rewatching sometime this week, so things might be moved around and changed.
> 
> (2) we will get through the trying times of endgame together.
> 
> (3) chapter titles are from richard siken

**Author's Note:**

> (1) hoping to get chapters out once a week but honestly, who knows, i'll post them as i finish them. i'm very excited about this fix it. 
> 
> (2a) it wasn't that i was? particularly unhappy? with how cap's character ended but it's my god-given, bisexual right to be dramatic and i thoroughly believe steve rogers is a Big Bi Baby
> 
> (2b) yes, this is stucky endgame


End file.
